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Thomas Lackey
NAIVE ART IN CANADA
A very prosaic problem attends any discussion of naive art in Canada: the study of such art is still in its infancy. We have been long enough
in recognising the contribution of folk art to our
culture; naive art, a much less common contribution, has yet to receive the attention that it
deserves. The artists are practically unknown and this makes it very difficult to comment with
any assurance on what has influenced individual artrsts or even how large a body of work they
have produced. Not only the artists but also the sympathetic observers are scattered and isolated.
Canadian artists are struggling to grasp a culture which is neither quite folk nor purely
North American in origin. Our European roots are recent and confused. The disparate immigrant groups that make up what is smugly referred to as the "Canadian mosaic" are both geographically and politically isolated. Memory
is their only link to the roots of their culture, and it fades and is altered by lack of contact. American mass culture intrudes and renders much of what was once a genuine expression of folk
culture as tourist kitsch. Unlike our American neighbours, we have no common thread of myth
to bind our national consciousness, none of the simple verities of Grandma Moses. The house
and barn paintings from Galt Ontario are not joyous or feverishly populated but isolated and
stark; they speak to no one else and barely speak to each other across the ambiguous ground on
which they stand.
Because of the cultural confusion of a country that has retained ethnic identities instead of submerging them in an American "melting pot," the general tradition of decorative folk painting remains strong. The 1745 Ex Voto
from Quebec is evidence of both the religious foundation of that province's settlement and the
continuity of a folk painting tradition in the New World. It is irrelevant that this work is almost
indistinguishable from its European contemporaries; it is part of the root of a tree that continues
to flower in this country. Successive waves of immigrants have brought a fresh eye and a
renewed desire to describe and depict their new environment. Their images vary widely from
frenzied to awestruck or nostalgic. Most of these works are naive only in the sense that they
cannot reconcile their new circumstances. But through the confusion and the mass of folk
expression that is solely concerned with transmitting the symbols of a culture in the throes of
accommodating itself to a new world, come some works of vision and expression of what this new
land might offer. Young Sarah Picket's drawing of a steamship, as a piece of ebullient capitalistic optimism, contrasts beautifully with Richard Coates' serene "Quaker Madonna," who cradles two infants and supports the banner of "Peace." These two works may perfectly express the poles
of the North American promise: material gain, and freedom from religious persecution. One of
the realities confronting l9th-century immigrants to Canada was the overwhelming vastness
of the land itself. The theme of isolation and man dwarfed by nature recurs repeatedly in Canadian
popular painting. The carving of the schooner "Porto Weir" floats breathlessly on a grey-green
ocean as an agonisingly lonesome symbol of men who work on this life-sustaining but unforgiving
sea. "Porto Weir," inscribed in the paint of the background, so minimally as almost to defy
reproduction, hovers like an epitaph over this ghost ship.
Despite their dimly recognised contribution, contemporary Canadian naive artists represent a
vital continuity with the work of their historical predecessors. The modern work is not an aberration but an affirmation that the spirit of an art that extends itself into a larger world is still alive. In looking at the contemporary work, it is important to avoid the easy solution of choosing paintings of charm and simplicity and offering
them up to the world under the generous umbrella of the term "naive." Charm and simplicity are not substitutes for a clarity and force of vision which carries itself effortlessly across cultures and time. Any other use of "naive" in an
art context calls up the worst sin that can be charged against that word: it is patronising. The selection of
20th-century works is advisedly limited. We do not yet know the extent of the contribution that naive art has made to Canada. Appreciation and its search for gratification are only beginning.
The five contemporary artists are chosen because they represent the best range of influences: folk, work, mass culture, and a sense of space. Ernest Gendron, from Quebec, has combined folk symbolism - stars, hearts, birds and floral motifs - with an obsessive and vibrant patterning to frame his nostalgic and
cynical relief paintings of media heroes. The price of an individual painting is based on Gendron's appreciation of the international fame of the subject: up to $ 300,000 for a portrait of Charlie Chaplin.
Sam Spencer also draws from popular culture images, but with a completely
different intent. Spencer has carved an icon, a homage to a hockey hero whose image has come
to him from the pages of a sports calendar. It shares with the anonymous painting of the fox
from Prince Edward Island a powerful sense of the survivor: one a latter-day knight errant
conquering with grace and strength, the other keeping the world at bay with guile and a mythic
aura. "These Good Old Threshing Days," by Jan Wyers, is a celebration of the time when the vast
loneliness of the prairies is reduced to a human scale with the communal effort of harvesting. It is a joyous affirmation of man's labour. Joseph Sleep's joy is that of a man discovering the whole
world at once. All living things are his delight. He absorbed the whimsy and colours of the carnivals
he worked for and combined them with elements of children's book illustrations and patterns
given him by a hospital nurse to create an ingenuous peaceful kingdom.
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